Alaska is home to some of the most remote and quietest communities in the US, where year-round populations are often well under 3,000. Their isolation has shaped communities along fjords and glaciers, with hundreds of Alaskan communities accessible only by air or water, including Tenakee Springs on Chichagof Island and Sitka on Baranof Island. Girdwood is another tranquil spot right in the heart of the wilderness, but it is home to Alyeska Resort, for those travelers who want comfort during their trip. Tour historic fishing villages on the Kenai Peninsula and ferry-linked communities in the Inside Passage, in these quietest Alaska towns.
Girdwood
Overlooking the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska. Image credit Claudine Van Massenhove via Shutterstock.com
Girdwood is a mountain valley community in the Chugach Mountains and a haven for nature lovers seeking a quieter environment. Despite its size, Girdwood supports a concentrated outdoor recreation sector, including guided hikes, kayaking, flightseeing, ATV rides, and seasonal dog-sledding adventures. Only a one-hour drive from Anchorage, this small town is defined by its mountain setting and glacier-fed rivers.
One of the biggest drivers of traffic to Girdwood is Alyeska Resort, a luxury resort at the base of Mount Alyeska. The resort features alpine ski slopes in winter and meadows of wildflowers in summer. For visitors wanting to explore beyond the resort itself, Alyeska also coordinates guided excursions into nearby wilderness areas.
Girdwood also sits near the Chugach National Forest trail system, where forest hikes and wildlife viewing opportunities are widely available. Chugach is the second-largest national forest in the United States, covering 5.4 million acres and offering more than 60 trails through temperate rainforest, alpine terrain, and glacial valleys. Another scenic way to experience the area is aboard the Alaska Railroad. The railway runs through coastal and alpine landscapes and connects travelers to excursions such as Kenai Fjords cruises, Resurrection Bay wildlife tours, and other regional sightseeing trips.
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Haines
The cannery is located in the famous fishing village of Haines, Alaska.
Haines sits between fjords and snow-covered peaks. Its mountain-enclosed coastal setting, laid-back pace, and frequent wildlife sightings make it a notable destination for outdoor recreation. Glacier-fed waters support activities such as fishing and kayaking, while nearby trails allow hikers to explore the surrounding landscape.
Haines is home to the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, which protects roughly 48,000 acres of habitat supporting the world’s largest recorded population of bald eagles. The preserve also safeguards the salmon run and supports other wildlife, including mountain goats, moose, swans, and bears. Visitors are asked to remain in designated viewing areas to minimize disruption to wildlife.
The town also preserves a historic military site. Fort William H. Seward, built in 1902 during a border dispute period between the United States and Canada, is the last remaining Gold Rush-era military post in Alaska. Located only a ten-minute walk from downtown along the waterfront, the site includes preserved barracks, officers’ homes, and parade grounds that can typically be explored in one to two hours.
The surrounding waterways further define Haines’ landscape. Lutak Inlet and Chilkoot Lake sit at the foot of the Takshanuk Mountains and provide opportunities for boating, canoeing, kayaking, and fishing. The ten-mile drive to Chilkoot Lake features several scenic pull-offs overlooking the inlet where birds and marine life are often visible.
Ninilchik
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Transfiguration in Ninilchik, Alaska.
This fishing village on the Kenai Peninsula is known for its coastal sunsets and quiet beaches. Located 180 miles south of Anchorage and 35 miles north of Homer, Ninilchik is a historic settlement and an active fishing village. A prominent local landmark is the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Chapel, an iconic Russian Orthodox church often photographed by visitors. Built in 1901, the bluff-top structure features five golden onion domes and stands beside a historic Russian Orthodox cemetery. From the site, there are sweeping views across the Cook Inlet toward volcanoes on the western horizon.
For outdoor recreation, the Ninilchik River and Cook Inlet provide fishing areas and beach access. Tide-walking and coastal fishing are common activities, and the beaches offer clear views of the volcanoes across the water.
Ninilchik also hosts Salmonfest each summer. The three-day event features more than 60 bands across four stages along with camping, food vendors, local brews, and salmon-themed artwork, while also supporting educational programming and conservation initiatives focused on Alaska’s salmon fisheries.
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Sitka
The serene town of Sitka, Alaska.
The seaside community of Sitka on Baranof Island, known for its Indigenous heritage with visible Russian historical influence, is only accessible by air and sea. The town is surrounded by fjords, boreal forest, and glacial landscapes along Alaska’s Inside Passage. Marine wildlife viewing is a common activity in Sitka’s coastal waters. Whale-watching tours, sea kayaking excursions, and guided boat trips provide opportunities to see humpback whales, sea otters, and other marine species. Visitors who prefer to stay on land can visit Whale Park, where shoreline viewpoints sometimes offer glimpses of whales offshore.
One of Sitka’s most recognizable landmarks is St. Michael’s Cathedral. Constructed between 1844 and 1848, the Russian Orthodox cathedral features traditional onion domes and gold-colored crosses, reflecting Russia’s cultural presence in Alaska during the 19th century.
Another well-known site is the Alaska Raptor Center, which rehabilitates injured birds of prey before releasing them back into the wild. Located on a 17-acre campus bordering Tongass National Forest, the facility includes a large flight-training aviary where visitors can watch eagles, hawks, and owls during rehabilitation.
Petersburg
Harbor in Petersburg, Alaska.
Often called “Little Norway,” Petersburg maintains strong Scandinavian cultural traditions alongside its active fishing industry. Each year, the community hosts the Little Norway Festival, celebrating Norwegian Independence Day with parades, folk dancing, traditional costumes, and food booths featuring local seafood and Norwegian dishes. Local history is also preserved at the Clausen Memorial Museum, where exhibits highlight the town’s fishing heritage through historic gear and artifacts such as a traditional Tlingit dugout canoe and the largest king salmon caught in the region.
This is another town this is only accessible by air or water. Just outside town lies LeConte Glacier, the southernmost tidewater glacier in Alaska. Located at the end of a 12-mile fjord roughly 20 miles by boat from Petersburg, the glacier can be viewed through flightseeing trips, kayaking excursions, or charter boat tours that travel through the fjord.
Tenakee Springs
View of Tenakee Springs, Alaska. Image credit Gillfoto – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia
Located on Chichagof Island, Tenakee Springs is accessible primarily by water or small aircraft. Its remote setting and small population contribute to a slower pace of life along the waterfront community. Despite its size, Tenakee Springs maintains two long-standing institutions that draw seasonal visitors. The first is the Hot Springs Bath House. Construction began in 1900 around the natural hot spring that originally attracted settlers, and residents and visiting boaters still gather here for communal soaking.
Tenakee Springs is also home to the Tenakee Springs Market, founded in 1899. The store serves as the town’s main supply hub and carries groceries, household items, and locally made goods. Across the street, the Tenakee Museum displays photographs and household artifacts that document daily life in the community’s early years.
The town is surrounded by Tongass National Forest, which spans roughly 17 million acres and is recognized as the largest intact temperate rainforest in the United States. The forest supports abundant wildlife, including eagles, bears, and spawning salmon.
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Skagway
The port of Skagway, Alaska.
Skagway developed during the Klondike Gold Rush and remains closely tied to that period of frontier history. The town sits between steep mountains and coastal waterways at the northern end of the Inside Passage, where transportation routes first built for stampeders still shape the landscape.
The White Pass and Yukon Route Railway is one of Skagway’s defining attractions. Built in 1898 during the Gold Rush, the railroad climbs steep mountain passes above town. The popular White Pass Summit excursion passes landmarks such as Bridal Veil Falls, Inspiration Point, and Dead Horse Gulch while traveling through alpine scenery.
The beautiful downtown area of Skagway, Alaska.
Six blocks of downtown Skagway form a designated Historic District. Private, city, state, and federal organizations have worked together to preserve many late-1890s buildings, including former saloons, hotels, and storefronts now interpreted by Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
Visitors can learn more about this history at the Skagway Museum, located in the historic McCabe Building, constructed in 1899. Exhibits include historic photographs of early Skagway streets and personal belongings from stampeders who traveled the Chilkoot and White Pass trails. Documents and photographs of early life in Skagway provide visitors with a look into the town’s rich history.
Whittier
The town of Whittier, Alaska.
At the head of Prince William Sound, steep mountains and tidewater glaciers surround the small community of Whittier. About 90 minutes from Anchorage by car, the town serves as a gateway to the surrounding marine environment. Day cruises departing from Whittier travel through Prince William Sound and often pass tidewater glaciers such as Blackstone Glacier and Beloit Glacier. These trips frequently provide sightings of marine wildlife, including humpback whales, sea otters, and harbor seals.
Although small, Whittier has a history tied to World War II and the Cold War. A self-guided walking route highlights preserved military buildings and explains the town’s role as an ice-free port and logistics hub during those periods.
Access to Whittier is controlled by the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the longest highway tunnel in North America at roughly two and a half miles. Built in the mid-20th century, the tunnel alternates traffic direction on a timed entry schedule and was engineered to withstand the region’s extreme weather conditions.
Alaska’s scale often draws attention, but in these smaller communities, the landscape becomes part of everyday life. Fjords, forests, and rivers shape how people travel, work, and spend their time. With small populations and limited development, these towns maintain a slower pace that stands apart from busier destinations.
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For travelers hoping to experience a quieter side of Alaska, these communities offer something increasingly rare: space, quiet, and a close connection to the surrounding environment. Many also preserve historic districts, cultural traditions, and working waterfronts that continue to define local life.
Artists rendering of the future Arctic Security Cutter that the U.S. Coast Guard said would first be homeported in Alaska. The first of the icebreaking cutters are scheduled for delivery in 2028. (Davie Defense, Inc.)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday that the first two Arctic Security Cutters will be homeported in the State of Alaska. Anticipating delivery of the first Arctic Security Cutters by the end of 2028, the Coast Guard has begun planning to ensure necessary infrastructure and support are in place to receive two icebreakers. Ensuring these vessels are supported by trained and ready crews, and ready homeport facilities including housing, will be essential to delivering full, enduring operational capability required to meet emerging Arctic security challenges.
“Homeporting these two Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska is a decisive step forward in securing America’s Arctic frontier,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. “I want to thank President Trump for his bold leadership and vision in directing this critical investment, as well as Senator Sullivan and the entire Alaskan Congressional delegation for championing the funding that made these icebreakers possible. These vessels will deliver the enduring operational presence our nation needs to protect sovereignty, deter foreign adversaries, and safeguard vital resources for the American people..”
The homeporting of the first two Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska builds on the historic expansion of the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet and underscores an unprecedented investment in the Arctic. This announcement marks a national milestone in U.S. Arctic capability, following contract awards for up to 11 Arctic Security Cutters. Fueled by $3.5 billion in funding in the Fiscal Year 2025 Reconciliation Bill and facilitated by a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Finland in October 2025, the acquisition of Arctic Security Cutters will fulfill President Trump’s directive to rapidly deliver America’s newest icebreaker fleet.
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“Homeporting Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska underscores the United States’ leadership as a maritime power in the Arctic,” said Adm. Kevin E. Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard. “By strategically positioning these state-of-the-art icebreakers in Alaska, the Coast Guard will maximize our ability to defend our northern border and approaches, while reinforcing America’s maritime dominance in a crucial region of strategic importance.”
Through contract awards to Rauma Marine Constructions Oy of Rauma, Finland, Bollinger Shipyards Lockport, L.L.C., and Davie Defense, Inc. of Vienna, VA, the U.S. will immediately benefit from our Finnish partners’ icebreaker expertise while coordinating the onshoring of that expertise and shipbuilding to the United States. Under the MOU, Finland will construct up to four ASCs for the U.S Coast Guard. U.S. shipyards will build and deliver up to seven additional ASCs. Delivery of the first Arctic Security Cutters is expected by the end of 2028.
Arctic Security Cutters will form the backbone of a revitalized U.S. icebreaker fleet, strengthening American maritime dominance in the Arctic. Fielding specialized capabilities, these icebreakers will defend U.S. sovereignty, secure critical shipping lanes, protect energy and mineral resources, and counter foreign malign influence in the Arctic region. A robust icebreaker fleet will enable the Coast Guard to control, secure and defend U.S. Alaskan borders and Arctic maritime approaches, facilitate maritime commerce vital to economic prosperity and strategic mobility, and respond to crises and contingencies in the region.
Acquisition of Arctic Security Cutters supports the Coast Guard’s ongoing modernization, through which the Service is transforming into a more agile, capable and responsive fighting force.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Phyllis Sullivan has certainly led a life worth celebrating.
Born in 1926, Sullivan moved to Alaska with her husband and three children in 1959 to teach, first in the village of Kwethluk in Western Alaska and later at Wendler and Mears Middle Schools in Anchorage.
All the while, she left strong impressions with countless students and acquaintances, some of whom gathered in the basement of Anchor Park United Methodist Church in Anchorage Saturday to celebrate Sullivan’s century of life.
“Education has been the primary thing in her entire life,” her son Dennis Sullivan said. “She’s always been a school teacher and she’s been one of the sweetest people in the entire world.”
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As a slideshow featuring vintage photos from her life and time in Alaska played, Phyllis, wheelchair-bound but high in spirit, stopped to chat with every new person who entered the room, some of whom she hadn’t seen in years.
“It’s impressive that this many people are here,” she said. “That’s very encouraging. Makes me think maybe I did something right along the way.”
Aside from family members, most visitors were there because of the impression Phyllis Sullivan left on them during her many years in the classroom.
“She gave us this one assignment: to memorize a poem,” former Mears student Tina Arend recalled. She said Phyllis Sullivan was her 8th grade English teacher.
“And when she gave us the assignment, she said, ‘I’ve had students come back many, many, many years later and recite the poem to me.’ And we actually still remember the poem,” Arend said of her and her husband, who was also in attendance. They both went on to become teachers at Mears as well.
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Matthew Nicolai, whom Phyllis Sullivan taught in Kwethluk, has similarly fond memories.
“The Bureau had ordered that teachers do corporal punishment for speaking Yup’ik,” Nicolai remembered. “Even though we spoke Yup’ik, she never did that, never cracked our hands. Other teachers did, but not her. That’s why we never forgot her.”
In addition to teaching, Phyllis Sullivan also found time to open her home to those in need. She and her husband once took in a family with seven kids who had been displaced by flooding in Fairbanks in 1967.
“It touched our heart because they bought us a lot of stuff that we needed because we lost a lot of stuff during the flood,” David Solomon, one of those seven kids, said. “We stayed there for over three years.”
Phyllis Sullivan said she is enjoying life and is doing fine.
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“My mother made it to 103,” she said. “So, I’ve got a while yet.”
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The Alaska Senate Finance committee advanced a draft capital budget on Tuesday that would put nearly $250 million toward state facilities and maintenance projects next year.
The draft budget adds $88 million to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed capital budget of $159 million, with the largest additions going toward K-12 schools and university facilities maintenance.
That was a focused effort by the finance committee, said co-chair Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, who called funding for education facilities maintenance a “heavy concentration” on Wednesday.
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Earlier this year, students and school officials testified to lawmakers that decades of deferred maintenance has reached crisis levels — with many rural school districts in particular grappling with deteriorating facilities, failing water and sewer systems — which they say is degrading student and staff morale. Lawmakers have expressed support and increased funding in recent years, but point to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s history of vetoes as a roadblock for funding education.
The Senate draft includes $57.8 million in additional funding toward K-12 school maintenance through the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development and $17 million toward the University of Alaska. It also includes $5.7 million for the Alaska Court System’s facilities and $8 million for community infrastructure and workforce development programs through the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development.
The Legislature relies on state ranked lists to prioritize where to direct funding to capital projects for K-12 schools, the university system and the court system.
For K-12 schools, the state’s current major maintenance list totals over $400 million needed for 103 school projects and repairs. Stedman said he recognized this year’s capital budget will only fund a fraction of those.
“Hopefully we get a quarter of it done, or something like that, but it’d be nice to retire the entire list,” Stedman said.
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The draft budget would fund the top 15 school projects on the list, plus funds for three other schools in need of emergency fuel tank repairs. The top projects range from roof and boiler replacements to septic systems, fire suppression and safety upgrades in schools from Fairbanks to the Aleutian Islands.
In order to distribute funds more widely, members of the finance committee reduced funding for one project in Galena, in the Western Interior of Alaska, from roughly $35 million to $5 million for renovations to the Sydney C. Huntington Elementary and High Schools. They also allocated $17 million towards rebuilding the school in Stebbins in Western Alaska, after it burned down in 2024.
The Senate draft also adds nearly $14 million in funding for the state-run Mt. Edgecumbe High School, which has been the focus of public attention and concern after a quarter of students disenrolled this year. The additional facilities dollars include $10 million to remodel the dining hall, $3.1 million to replace dorm windows, $460,000 to replace dorm furniture, $50,000 to replace mattresses and $125,000 to replace aging laundry machines.
Finance members added $17 million to fund the top nine projects across the University of Alaska system — three projects each within the three major campuses.
Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, serves on the finance committee and his district includes University of Alaska Southeast. He described the proposed funds as a “nickel” compared to the “colossal” deferred maintenance needs of the university system.
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“That’s been built by Legislatures and Boards of Regents for 40 years,” he said on Wednesday, adding that it is a shared responsibility to put funding towards repairs and upgrades.
“The Constitution makes them a separate body within the executive branch that puts a lot of responsibility on them, too, more than the general state government,” he said “So university major maintenance is its own huge problem.”
The draft budget also includes $5.7 million for upgrades to state court facilities, mostly targeted to Anchorage and Sitka. It contains nearly $10 million for workforce development programs geared at the construction and oil and gas sectors, including for the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center and Alaska Vocational Technical Center in Seward.
An amendment to add $25 million to the draft budget for the Port of Anchorage, sponsored by Sen. Kelly Merrick, R-Eagle River, was voted down on Tuesday by a 5 to 2 vote.
Before voting against the proposal, finance co-chair Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, said during committee deliberations the priority this year is to fund as many school maintenance projects on the list as possible, saying “schools are falling apart” and must be maintained to prevent further deterioration.
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“Students that are trying to learn deserve better,” Hoffman said. “And if we are not able to provide this major maintenance, we are going to see these schools continue to crumble, and the financial burden to the state of Alaska will be hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild schools.”
More funding for school maintenance and other capital projects could be added by the Alaska House of Representatives, who will take up the draft budget bill after it’s approved by the Senate in the coming weeks.
